Sunday, 11 August 2013

The living park of Bangalore

This is not only one of the
best lung spaces of Urban India but it is also the place where all the wings of
the Constitution-Legislature, Executive and Judiciary functioned for several
decades from a single building on its premises.

It is also the place which
today is the centre of the State administration, the police force, judiciary. It
is surrounded by buildings which house the many departments and offices of the
State.

The Vidhana Soudha, the seat
of power of Karnataka: the High Court which is the apex court of the State and
the Raj Bhavan which houses the first citizen of the State and is the official residence
of the Governor of Karnataka surrounds this patch of green.

The Vidhana Soudha, Karnataka
High Court, Raj Bhavan and many other buildings were once part of this famed
park. Today, the park remains, a grim reminder of the battle against growing urbanization
and the increasing greed for space and land. Though the park has shrunk to a
large extent, it has managed to retain its basic character as a well-known repository
of trees and a buffer zone that once divided the old city or Pete from the
Civil and Military Station or Cantonment.

This is the second oldest park
in Bangalore and its is better known as CubbonPark.
When this park was conceived in the middle of the 19th Century and
subsequently extended, it covered more than 300 acres. The only building that
the park had on its premises was the Raj Bhavan today which then was known as
the Residency.

A little down the Residency
and on what is today Infantry Road
was the office of the Commissioner of Police which was a hotel and it also
housed stables.

Behind the CubbonPark
was the vast and sprawling SampangiLake which was separated from CubbonPark
by the breathtaking Sydney Road.

Cubbon Park, till a few
decades ago, occupied 325 acres but the powers that be have over the years
permitted buildings and commercial complexes and of course offices to come up
all around the park and today, the park areas is just 190 acres.

Named after Mark Cubbon who
is one of the longest serving Chief Commissioners of Mysore, the park has already been renamed as Chamarajendra
(It was renamed in 1927). However, very few are aware of the renaming and
people still continue to call it CubbonPark.

Interestingly, Cubbon who was
the chief commissioner of Mysore
from 1834 to 1861, never set his eyes on the park. Nor did he commission it. He
was in Egypt when the idea
of such a park took shape and he died there en route to England.

The park owes its origin to Colonel
Meade who was the Commissioner of Mysore from 1870 to 1875. Actual work on the
park commenced in 1864 when the British wanted an ornamental garden around the
Attara Kutcheri (the present High Court which housed the administrative offices
from 1868. Before being shifted to the Kutcheri which was built in 1864, the
offices were in the palace of Tipu near the Bangalore
fort). The then Chief Engineer of Mysore,
Richard Sankey, commenced work on the park in 1864. It was formally inaugurated
in 1870.

The park was initially
Meade’s Garden before it took on the name of
Cubbon. The first patch of green was on a 100-acre plot around Attara
Kacheri. Over the years, the Government acquired orchards and paddy fields from
Thigalas or Vanniyars who had settled centuries ago to expand the park.
The park had toll booths and the police and military patrolled the park on
horses to limit the interaction between the residents of the Pete or Pettah and
Cantonment.

The first fountain in the
park came up in 1935-36 and the cost was Rs 5,000. It was a present by the then Queen
of Nepal.

The park, till a few years
ago, was the place where several protests, dharnas, demonstrations, satyagraha
and other forms of agitation was held. The Gopala Gowda Circle was the place where
the maximum number of protests took place till they were banned.

The protests are no longer
held here and protesters can only come up to KR Circle Basaveshwara Circle and Minsk Square.

The park also was home to a
club which was patronised by the Maharaja of Mysore, Nalwadi Krishna Raja
Wodeyar. This is the Century Club. The other clubs in the vicinity are the
Secretariat Club, KSLTA Club and the Press
Club. Towards one end of the park is the KSCA Club and the Cricket stadium (Chinnaswamy
Stadium).

Even today, the park continues
to be the centre of attraction, It houses the High Court which is the supreme
judicial body of the State. It is also the headquarters of the Karnataka State Bar
Council (KSBC) which is the apex body of advocates of Karnataka. The High Court
also houses the office or High Court unit of the Advocates Association of
Bangalore (AAB) which is one of the largest such organisations in India with
several thousand members.

The High Court also houses
the office of the Advocate-General who is the legal advisor of the Chief
Minister and the head of Government pleaders, advocates of Karnataka. It also has
the office of the State Public Prosecutor who is head of the criminal division
of the Government advocate machinery.

The General Post Office (GPO)
is also situated on the periphery of the park as is the Central Telegraph
Office. The Press Club of Bangalore too is located in the park.

The headquarters of the State
Police the YMCA, Yavanika which is the headquarters of the Department of Youth
and Sports Service and also has an auditorium, the Metropolitan courts, RBI,
PWD all share their compounds with the park. Several museums such as the GovernmentMuseum
(built in 1876 and is credited with being one of the oldest), Visvesvaraiah
Technical and IndustrialMuseum, VenkatappaArtGallery,
Aquarium are also located on the premises. The Jawahar Bal Bhavan, the premier
body of children and the Karnataka Lawn Tennis Association courts which have
hosted many international tennis matches are also on the premises.

The headquarters of the State
Central Library too is on the premises and it is in the eye catching Seshadri Iyer
Memorial Hall. This iconic building was constructed in 1915. The VisvesvaraiahTowers, Coffee Board, BESCOM, MS
Building, Vikasa Soudha, UVCE and a host of other offices and establishments are
situated in the periphery of the park.

CubbonPark is perhaps the only one of its kind which is a real
living park. It gives people the pleasure of its greenery apart from making
available several roads for vehicular traffic-from Tiffanys Circle or
Siddalingaiah Circle at the junction of Kasturba Road and Mallya Road, the road
from Mahatma Gandhi statue into Cubbon Park, the traffic island from Minsk
Square at the junction of GPO and CTO, the road from Hudson Circle and also the
road leading from KR Circle into the park.

This park also houses the
highest decision making, policy making and legal interpretation in the State
apart from being a centre of science education (VITM), child entertainment (Bal
Bhavan and children’s park ), journalism (Press Club where a host of press
conferences and meet the press programmes are held), advocates’ association and
postal and telegraph-telephony services.

There are several small
temples and deities on the premises. The Band Stand once played music but today
it is a sad reflection of what it was once.

What sets this park aside
from others of its ilk is that it has been a witness to many epoch making
events and incidents. Who can forget the many swearing in ceremonies that were
organised on the steps of the Vidhana Soudha and the crowds spilled onto the lawns
of the High Court.

The park has also seen some of
the most eminent personalities of the world traversing its green and appreciating
its greenery. The who is who of Bangalore, including Chief Justices, judges,
Chief Ministers, Ministers, bureaucrats, technocrats, scientists, academicians
and others have taken their morning walk on the lawns of the park.

Several NGOs such as ESG, Hasiru
Usuru and others and personalities like Justice M.F. Saldhana, Bimal Desai,
Suresh Heblikar and scores of others have fought to protect, preserve and
nurture Cubbon Park.

The park today is under
increasing threat from growing urbanisation. As recently as two years ago, a
parcel of land at Gopala Gowda
Circle and near the Minsk Square had to be sacrificed for the
Namma Metro. The beautiful lawns of CubbonPark in front of the High
Court were dug up to accommodate the construction of the underground section on
Ambedkar Veedhi. The onslaught has to be stopped and the boundaries of the park
have to be preserved for posterity.

The park even today is a rich
treasure trove of exotic species of trees, plants and shrubs. Some of the oldest trees
in parks and gardens can be found here. The park also has a number of avenue laden paths decorated with flowering
plants and shrubs.

The park, according to the Department
of Horticulture, has 68 exotic species of plants including Swietenina mahogany,
Araucaria, Grevillea robusta, Bamboo, Grevillea robusta, Castanospermum
australe, Milletia, Peltophorum Schinus molle, and Tabebuia sp. Besides, the
park has 6,500 varieties of native species including Ficus, Artocarpus, Cassia
fistula and Polyalthias.

The silver Oaks were first introduced
from Australia
and today they are a major attraction as are the gulmohar and delonix trees.

Thankfully, the original
alignment of the Namma Metro was to take an underground line under the CubbonPark.
This alignment was given up and the metro line was routed through Minsk Square and GPO Circle (Thimmaiah Circle)
to Ambedkar Veedhi. Imagine the destruction the original line would have caused
to the fragile flora and fauna of the park.